Monday, November 1, 2010

The first bit of excitement was that she now stands up on the big kid scale, with her clothes on, to be weighed.

Well, except that I insisted on taking of her very, very heavy sweater when the first weight looked way too high to me. Turns out the sweater weighs 12 ounces, which is not insignificant on a child who is (without the sweater) less than 24 pounds.

(I was worried that I'd bringing her back in the summer for an ear check and be told she'd lost a pound because she's in shorts! As Shrike pointed out, apologetically, to the nurse, after what happened with her birthweight, I am a little sensitive about accuracy on the scale.)

I know that her diaper and pants added some weight, too, but they wouldn't let me take those off in the hallway, so I'll just have to get over it, and accept 23 pounds 8 ounces as "close enough."

She's 32 1/4 inches tall, which puts her in the 13th percentil for both height and weight.

Her head circumference is 18 1/4" which is 20th percentile.

(I'm not sure if it's because of all those brains in there or all the people telling her how adorable she is all the time.)

They did a screening questionaire for autism and she passed that "with flying colors." Some of the questions were so strongly YES (They asked about things a neurotypical kid should be doing, not things an autistic kid would be doing.) that we just burst out laughing when the nursed asked:

Does she like to play peekaboo or hide-and-seek?
Does she ever pretend to talk on the phone?
Does she smile and laugh at people?

Um, yeah, I think we're okay there.

The doctor was totally fine with my assessment that Peeper's probably still getting at least half her nutrition from nursing (Well, at least half the good stuff - I'm sure about 90% of her calories this week came out of a big orange bucket. Mine, too.)

He asked if she drinks juice or cow's milk, and when I said no, he said, "That's good. It's better for her teeth, and she's getting plenty of calcium from nursing."

He told us that she's now old enough to have 2% cows milk (as opposed to whole) ". . . when she weans, whenever that might be, or if she's three by then, she can go right to skim milk."

He checked her iron level (at my request, because we don't eat much meat, and she eats less) and it was fine - still on the low end of the acceptable range, but within it, and no supplement needed.

When he listened to her heart he said that it sounds "great!"

He asked nonchalantly about her language, and when I said that she'd had an explosion with it over the past couple of months, he said, "Oh, she has?!" and sounded very happy (and possibly a little relieved) to hear it.

As I expected, he asked if she was putting words together in phrases and I told him that she's not yet, but now that she's heard him suggest it, she probably will within the next week or two.

I reported that she had about 50 words (including animal sounds) at 22 months, and about 200 now, and he was very pleased with that, and even said at the end of the visit that "Those 200 words she's saying are more than most two year olds," which I was thrilled to hear.

(Especially since we seem to keep finding ourselves in the presence of eighteen month olds who speak in paragraphs. And pee in the potty. Show offs.)

He ended the appointment by declaring her, "a perfect little girl," and telling us to "keep up the good work," which is a really nice thing to hear.

She got three vaccinations, including flu, and did about as well as could be expected with those. By the time the nurse left the room, she was nursing and kind of sort of crying, but still managed to sign "thank you" when she heard us say it!

She's now in annual check-up range, and unless she's sick, we don't have to go back until she turns three!